mountaintop removal

While those of us following the Occupy movement online or on television may see it as a fairly conventional protest movement, complete with marching and chanting, a quick look at various encampments (or remnants thereof) around the country shows something quite different: alternative communities that value the input of all participants. Those communities themselves are the real protest: by living something quite different, even temporarily, Occupiers are able to highlight the absurdities of the current political structure.

When did you first hear the term “fracking,” the shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a decades-old natural gas extraction technique that’s come under scrutiny from both activists and governments alike? It was probably around the time of the release of Josh Fox’s GASLAND (which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival). No doubt that director Bill Haney and the producers of THE LAST MOUNTAIN (an official selection at Sundance this year) hope their activist documentary will bring similar attention to the practice of mountaintop removal by coal mining companies… another extraction method that’s been in use for years, and received a ton of attention within environmental and activist circles, but that hasn’t hit a tipping point in terms of general awareness of the damage it does to Appalachian communities in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky (as well as watersheds that feed huge portions of the Eastern US).

PETTUS, West Virginia, February 3, 2009 (ENS) – Fourteen people were arrested today at a Massey Energy mountaintop removal coal mine site for trespassing on company property while staging a protest of blasting they say will endanger communities on Coal River Mountain. Five activists with Climate Ground Zero and pan-Appalachian Mountain Justice who locked themselves…